Mindplayers

Mindplayers is one of the best books I have ever read, sci-fi or otherwise. Pat Cadigan has a brilliant imagination. She tries her best to keep up with it. Her writing is a bit haphazard, but very good overall. Mindplayers is set in the future, where Mindplay has changed society for better or worse. Differing degrees of Mindplay require professionals to assist those engaging in it. One of these professionals is Deadpan Allie (love that play on words). Allie is a former layabout who has been recruited to become a professional Mindplayer. The strange characters she meets and weird situations she is in mesmerize the reader. There is also a lot of philosophy for the reader to chew on. Recommended for sci-fi/fantasy fans. No graphic sex or violence. I also recommend Dervish is Digital, another sci-fi treasure by Cadigan.

Pat Cadigan's MindPlayers was one of the first "sci-fi" books I read, and I fell in love with it. All the characters have their own unique quirks and personality traits, but my favorite two characters were the twins, Dolby and Dolan. Each time I read Mindplayers, I find something that I missed the last time I read the book. The creative aspects of the characters is the best part of the story. It is noteworthy that almost every character within the book has an altered appearance; no one seems to be as they were at birth. Onionheads are especially interesting, although they get only a mention. Pat Cadigan has had to endure television and movie ripoffs of some of the details within Mindplayers, but this book remains a classic and the first of its kind.

Pat Cadigan made her mark in the 1980's as one of the finest writers of science fiction with her legendary short fiction and excellent novels such as "Mindplayers". Long out of print, this slender tome is one of the finest works of cyberpunk fiction; happily it is now back in print. Cadigan writes edgy, streetwise prose as carefully crafted as any by William Gibson; however, she does a better job in creating vivid, fascinating characters such as Deadpan Allie, the protagonist of "Mindplayers". Without a doubt, this could be a great psychological science fiction thriller akin to "Dark City" if anyone in Hollywood was clever enough to acquire the film rights to Cadigan's superb first novel.

This is Pat Cadigan's first novel, featuring Deadpan Allie (love that pun! - rock on, Cadigan). Cadigan had developed the character in stories written in the eighties. The book was published in 1987.Seen the film The Cell, where Jennifer Lopez is inside the head of a psycho? Well, Cadigan got there over 20 years ago with Deadpan Allie, who goes into the heads of various people with some pretty crazy things going on in there, and tries to heal them. Cadigan does a great job of knitting together the stories she wrote earlier in the eighties about Allie, and giving the whole novel a structure and an overall story arc. Allie is another of those street-smart, tough and funny women characters that Cadigan does better than anyone else. If you ran into her 'tec, Dore Konstantin in Tea from an Emtpy Cup, you'll know what I'm talking about.This book has been out of print for quite a while, and this new trade paperback edition from Gollancz is a nice looking piece of work. It's great to see the book back in the bookstores, and I for one will be going out to replace my battered and well-read Bantam paperback copy with one of these nice yellow-jacket jobs.Pat Cadigan is right up there with William Gibson and Bruce Sterling among the founders of cyberpunk. Is cyberpunk dead? No way! Read Mindplayers and find out how alive and kicking it is.